1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer readable information recording medium storing a printing setting editing program, a printing setting editing apparatus and a printing setting editing method, with which an operator edits a printing setting.
2. Description of the Related Art
A company in the commercial printing industry, which receives printed pages (a catalog, an advertisement or the like) from a customer, generates printed output pages requested by the customer from the printed pages, delivers the thus generated printed output pages to the customer and receives a reward from the customer, carries out plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages. The plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages include, for example, a reception of printed pages from the customer, a reception of printing conditions for the printed output pages from the customer, pre-press processes such as a color change, a layout change and a binding position change, proof printing for the customer to check the pre-press result, printing processes, post-press processes (post processes) such as binding the printed output pages, compression bonding of the printed output pages or the like after the printing processes, and delivery of the printed output pages to the customer. It is noted that the plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages may increase or decrease depending on the printing conditions for the printed output pages requested by the customer.
In the related art of the commercial printing industry, there are many orders from customers to carry out printing in large quantities, and the above-mentioned plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages, for example, are carried out to execute the many orders. Further, in many cases, for such orders of printing in large quantities, printing conditions from customers for printed output pages are fixed. Therefore, in the commercial printing industry in the related art, printed output pages requested by customers are generated through cycles in which a large quantity (lot) of printing is carried out according to fixed printing conditions, and after the printing for the lot is finished, another lot of printing is carried out after the printing conditions are changed.
In the printing cycles, the above-mentioned plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages are carried out in many cases, when printing conditions from customers for printed output pages are changed. Therefore, in a case where printing conditions from customers for printed output pages are not changed, a commercial printer can carry out printing continuously according to the fixed printing conditions, and thus, it is possible to carry out printing in large quantities with high efficiency.
Recently, a print on demand (POD) market has appeared in which a commercial printer delivers a relatively small lot of printed output pages to a customer with a short delivery time. In the POD market, orders from plural customers are received in many cases. As a result, in the POD market, in many cases, printed pages sent to a commercial printer from customers include many different types of printed pages, or printing conditions requested by the customers for printed output pages include many different conditions.
Furthermore, recently, digitizing of printed pages has proceeded, and a computer has been used to control generation of printed output pages. For example, workflow techniques of sending printed pages from a customer in a form of electronic data to a printer via a communication network, and controlling the above-mentioned plural processes from reception of printed pages to delivery of printed output pages, have appeared. For example, according to the workflow techniques, there is a configuration in which printing operations in the above-mentioned plural processes from reception of printed pages to delivery of printed output pages are defined by a job ticket using a job definition format (JDF), and the printing operations are controlled in a printing system.
Along with such a change in the printing environment, commercial printers have proceeded with introduction of computers into printing systems for generating printed output pages for received orders. On the other hand, commercial printers currently need to build printing systems which can meet various printing conditions for printed output pages requested by customers and so forth. Further, in order to generate various printed output pages requested by customers, it becomes necessary to meet customers' requests, from a system viewpoint by introducing plural printer apparatuses and/or peripheral apparatuses (i.e., device apparatuses), and from a working process viewpoint by changing the above-mentioned plural processes from reception of printed pages to delivery of printed output pages at relatively short cycles.
Commercial printers thus need to meet customers' requests in the above-mentioned manner, and also, need to improve the operational efficiency in order to produce profits. As a method to improve the operational efficiency, there is a method of simplifying operations.
For example, techniques are known in which an operator operates a printing setting editing apparatus to cause the printing setting editing apparatus to display a preview image obtained from modifying electronic data of printed pages sent from a customer according to a given printing setting such as simplex/duplex, stapling, monochrome/color, or the like. Further, a spool data apparatus is known by which it is possible to easily edit a printing target displayed as a preview image, for the purpose of lightening the operator's workload (for example, see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-152488).
Further, in order to meet recent diversified printing requests, techniques are known in which electronic data of printed pages sent from a customer is partially modified according to a given printing setting such as simplex/duplex, stapling, monochrome/color, or the like, and is used to print printed output pages. For example, a printing control apparatus is known in which in a condition where a preview image is displayed, a printing setting for the entirety of printed pages sent from a customer and a printing setting for each of chapters are separately carried out (for example, see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2004-185489).